VIOLENCE, FILMS, AND THE MURDER OF JAMES BULGER

That this House notes that a child in the United States of America is likely to have seen 20,000 murders on television by the age of five; further notes that many homes in the United Kingdom are increasingly saturated by a growing culture of violence disseminated by television, video and computer, and that the father of one of the boys found guilty of the murder of James Bulger brought into his home videos, allegedly including the film, Child Play III which depicts a doll that turns into a child and which is subsequently killed by two boys on a ghost-train; further notes the evidence produced as early at 1972 by Elliot Aranson in The Social Animal that children copy the aggressive behaviour of adults; affirms that the depiction of murder and mutilation as entertainment is detrimental to the moral values of children exposed to violent films; calls on Her Majesty's Government to launch an immediate investigation into the role played by violent films in the psychological impulses that led to this murder; and further calls for the tightening of the controls on the broadcasting of violence on television and through videos.